With due respect to the other contenders of this category, they
all brought metaphorical knives to a proverbial gunfight as far as
LM was concerned. The NCAA women's final tilt between North
Carolina and Maryland had it all.

An undefeated team going for perfection. A league rivalry. A
longtime 'close but no cigar' program looking for its first title.
Huge clutch saves. Momentum swings. And three overtimes that were
in one sense five, since the first two OTs were split into
three-minute halves.

In the end, the Tar Heels struck last, ending the longest
women's championship game in NCAA history on a sudden-death play
that started with a big save by goalie Megan Ward and finished with
freshman Sammy Jo Tracy finishing a Brittany Coppa feed in front of
9,391 lucky fans at Villanova Stadium.

"I told my husband before the game that it would probably go to
overtime," North Carolina coach Jenny Levy said. "The game could
have gone either way, but I just felt like if we were going to win,
it was going to have to be in overtime."

Her prediction came true in epic fashion.

"There was one special moment, right before the third overtime,
when our fans were chanting when we went to our bench," midfielder
Kara Cannizzaro said. "I don't even remember what coach said in the
huddle, but it was just amazing. You can't even really put it into
words."

The only words needed to sum it up: Best game of 2013.

Fan Vote

The fans diverted from our staff on this one, selecting an
inarguably great Detroit-Notre Dame NCAA first round tilt as their
choice with over 50% of the vote. There was a lot to be said about
that one, as it saw a Detroit team that barely made it into its own
CONFERENCE tournament (which it scored two straight upsets to win)
land body punches early to put the No. 2 seed Irish on the ropes
before Notre Dame rallied to advance. The Carolina-Maryland tilt
earned most of the votes that the Irish and Titans didn't, as the
other three finalists managed just 12% of the total vote.